To penetrate concrete, picks up drill (9)
I believe the answer is:
rehearsal
'drill' is the definition.
(rehearsal is a kind of drill)
'to penetrate concrete picks up' is the wordplay.
'to penetrate' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'concrete' becomes 'real' ('real' can be similar in meaning to 'concrete').
'picks up' becomes 'hears' (hearing is a kind of picking up).
'real' going around 'hears' is 'REHEARSAL'.
(Other definitions for rehearsal that I've seen before include "preparation in house?" , "Practice in theatre etc" , "Play run-through" , "show trial" , "Dry run" .)